What is your Gamechanger feature?

How could I forget the club/group feature!

My other post was getting too long, so I decided to break it into two, but my other gamechanger is just realizing that I could play multiple households while only making one a priority. So, I have my main generational house, and then all of their family and friends are there to basically just support their story, even though they each have their own identity. Sometimes one of the other houses gets their own smaller side story, but I don't have to play them equal time, which was just way too much for me to handle when I tried it. This approach has really allowed me to progress in the game.

Gamechanger for me was the Re-Traiting potion. I mostly play the Time Lord challenge. Prior to the Re-Traiting potion, I had to use cheats to change the traits on every regeneration.

The problem with using cheats is that the trait is still with your sim despite being replaced with something else. What ends up happening is that a Tense emotion will show up from the previously replaced trait.

I'd say the addition of toddlers followed by the Parenthood GP have been the biggest gamechangers. Both have brought a lot more depth to my family play. I just found out that simply interacting with the baby raises the Parenting skill; both my Sims were up to level 2 before their eldest aged to toddler. I enjoy my Sim parents having to deal with the vagaries of childhood phases and teen mood swings. And toddlers are adorable, as well as giving a head start on developing the childhood skills if you get the toddler skills up to level 3 or 5.

"Hermitgirl;c-16807284" wrote:

"nastyjman;c-16807262" wrote:
Gamechanger for me was the Re-Traiting potion. I mostly play the Time Lord challenge. Prior to the Re-Traiting potion, I had to use cheats to change the traits on every regeneration.

The problem with using cheats is that the trait is still with your sim despite being replaced with something else. What ends up happening is that a Tense emotion will show up from the previously replaced trait.

I haven't used this yet when you drink the potion do you get all the points back to reuse?

Nope. The potion is 5000 points. Once you use it, a pop-up comes, and you can change your Sim's traits. Once you Save or Confirm, the potion is used up. No points is refunded.

My gamechanger is the transition from Sims 1 to Sims 2. In Sims 1, I played mostly with the premade families and tried to get them to the top of their careers all the time. I never tried to expand the families because chemistry, attraction, genetics, babies, aging, and marriage were not important.

Sims 2 changed EVERYTHING for me. I played the premade family tutorials and created my own Sims. The appearance of the Sims was amazing to me. The packs that came after (especially University, Nightlife, Seasons, and FreeTime) added so much to the gameplay that it made me want to play all the ages of Sims and create families. I took my Sims to community lots, skill lots, etc. I still haven't played PlantSims, Vampires, Aliens, etc but someday I may try those.

Several, but I will keep it brief.

Setting aging to long coupled with 14 day seasons lets my aging feel right

Gameplay style changed with Sims 4, I began telling stories through those little pixelated people

The gallery, I know we had it with Sims 3 but whenever i find myself bored or stuck with my own storytelling i pick a sim off the gallery and run with their story for a while

Toddlers and Parenthood changed alot for me even though I wasn't and still am not a huge fan of family play

Seasons probably. Nothing else has felt very significant to me.

I'll try to list gamechangers that were added in Sims 4 that i didnt knew i wanted, and other stuff that is not in Sims 4, but i really wanted it to be cuz it would be a huge gamechanger to me.
In Sims 1 probably everything was unexpected and a game changer to me like the bigger neighborhood in Unleashed and the pets or the power of magic in Makin' Magic, but i remember as a kid using the Hot Date EP too much. It was really cool to go out shopping for new clothes, or to go out on a date with someone i wanted my sim to date;
When Sims 2 release almost the entire base game was a gamechanger. It was 3D, we had genetics, more life stages, genetics... But the thing i most loved about the game was how alive and smart my sims were back then. They had memories that they really remembered ... The "emotion" of jealosy/rage was really cool, when a sim was betrayed by their partners they would remember that and feel angry towards the traitor and their affair, or when their kids saw that their parents were fighting they would run and cry, or if one of your sims family member caught the partner cheating on your sim they would also be mad... The memories in SIms 2 worked like actual memories... OMG. I wish we had that in SIms 4, my game would me so much more fun to play, cuz i play rotationally and usually the drama is not that great in SIms 4. If my sim caught the partner woohooing with another sim they would just be pissed, but not angry if their partner and their affair. Also Sims 2 had some major game changers in expansion packs... University, Seasons, Apartments, Open for Business and other for the first time in the series. But the ones that were more game changers (excluding the more obvious ones) were probably the hobbies system in Free Time, and the variety of residential types we could build like apartments, trailer parks, etc...
Sims 3 had open world and a huge freedom to customize everything we wanted. The CAW tool was amazing. Expansion packs features that were a gamechanger to me: the variety of occult life states, the Tomb Raider feel we had in World Adventure, the first time we could follow our sims to work in Ambitions, the depht and detail that Generations added to our sims lives, Horses, Showtime had many cool ideas, Supernatural was amazing and also let us choose which life states we wanted, or if we didnt want any we could turn them off and the moon cycle was really cool, Island Paradise was probably the peak of Sims 3 glory (besides the fact that it was the most laggy EP i had ever seen), and Into The Future was also amazing but could have added more to it than it did.
In Sims 4 base game i love the new CAS and how you could move rooms and etc... The gallery inside the game is amazing. The emotion system ins an interesting idea, but its OP and overcasts a huge shadow on the trait system (which should always be the main focus), they really need to do an overhaul on the emotions and traits to make them work together. The club system is something i cant live without for now on, the Vampires are the best vampires in the entire franchise, Seasons is always a gamechanger to me, but i have to say that i love the calendar in Sims 4... And, besides the fact the Del Sol Valley should be bigger, i love how Get Famous looks like and improved version of Superstar, with a more detailed acting career, but at the same time i think it deserves a Singer/Band/Music career in the same level of detail.
I hope that they add all those little things we all love in Sims 4, and keep adding them in all Sims generations.

@QueenofMyshuno I really like the idea of creating a high school/place to hang out only for teens. Now that you pointed it out it actually makes sense - at any public lot there is typically sims from all agegroups and your sim can make friends with anyone else. It actually feels really unrealistic. I guess you could make this better by creating clubs and have them visit a suitable lot, but I have yet to own GT so I can't tell :)

For my own answers I would say creating a backstory for my sims really make the gameplay deeper and I find myself often wondering what my sim would really do in that situation, and therefore not make the most obvious solution. This also links to using traits and choices that I find "wrong" since I tend to make the perfect sims living their perfect lives and it gets boring in the end.

The another one is linked to TS4 and it's turning the graphics to higher. I didn't even know what I've missed since I automicatically put the graphics to medium/low in the options panel since my computer wasn't the newest one. When I finally tried to adjust the graphics I found the game to be a bit slower, yes, but it doesn't affect my gameplay that much since all the good things it has given. I nowadays play more with the normal speed and zoom in to my sim to really enjoy the graphical details in the game. The best example of this would be San Myshuno since it's almost two different cities playing with low/high settings. I really like to watch my sim doing some yoga by the seaside in the evening when seeing the trains and citylights in the horisont. It's one of my favourite things to watch in the game nowadays, I find it really relaxing.